I've tried them both and love them both. Having trouble deciding which one's the best and to settle down with. Ubuntu's Unity is not a problem to me, I like it. But Mint's Cinnamon is also gorgeous.

I've decided to use an open source OS on my new laptop. and I need to pick one from these two. I know this topic has been discussed before. But the latest releases of Ubuntu and Linux Mint have greater improvements than ever before. So, I'm in trouble.

Help me decide which one's the best. Most votes win.I appreciate all your help in advance

Linux is all about customization. Install different window managers (GNOME/KDE/XCFE/LXDE), experiment, then decide. You have much more customization options than on Windows/Mac on Linux. Don't forget to install Compiz too (for desktop effects).

No one could guess the version of Linux I'm running just by looking at my desktop...

Either distro would do the job for me. The first thing to go if I were to install Ubuntu is GNOME 3/Unity - I'm not a fan of it. I mainly use LXDE because of its speed and efficiency.

Between these two choices for out of the box desktops (you can run them on other distros) I'd go with Mint, although neither would be my first choice. Not liking where Unity is headed along with a few questionable moves by Canonical. Much prefer the direction Cinnamon is going, namely the destupidification of the Gnome desktop along with a few nice additions thrown in. Probably be a bit friendlier on the laptop's battery too as a guess.

I've liked Unity for a long time. I just stay with LTS versions for the most part, especially as Ubuntu have really reduced support periods for non-LTS versions.

But you could have more than one desktop on a system of course, and choose as you go. In theory I would love KDE and I do like it. I use several KDE-native programs on Unity. Maybe I should give KDE another try....

I just saw some previews of elementary OS. It looks amazing.
But it's still in Beta and I didn't see any big community for it. And I really can't afford to deal with bugs and issues, since I will be doing some serious work on the computer.

I only have very limited free time and it's not enough to experiment with all these Linux distros.
That's why I'm asking you guys to make the decision.
And no, it's not a stupid idea. I trust you guys